Pros:

Cons:

The Mortal Kombat series is possessed by an odd sort of charm that probably has a
lot to do with nostalgia. Back when you could count the number of extant fighting series
with one hand, MK occupied a vital place in that pantheon. The games were over the
top in presentation, rich in mythology (however hamfisted and convoluted), and wrapped in
myriad secrets that had players talking and thinking about them long after they'd last stuck
quarters in their slots.

Mortal Kombat: Deception is the latest of the "new generation" of MK
games, and just like its predecessor, it's built around all the things that made the series so
memorable in the first place. The problem, though, is that things have changed in the world
of fighters, and in terms of sheer mechanical depth and sophistication, the Mortal
Kombat formula just doesn't cut it. What it does offer is a whole bunch of secondary
content that will no doubt thrill the pants off of the series' diehard fans. There is a
lot in here, and despite the shortcomings of the core gameplay, the act of getting
access to all this stuff is pretty addicting. If you're anything like me, you'll almost dread
the actual fights.

The boys are back in town.

At its best, the core fighting mechanic behind Deception is amusing, and deep-seeming. It's amusing because of the stilted, almost vulgar way in which it's all
choreographed. It's definitely a product of its legacy -- the deliberate way in which all the
fighters move hearken back to the older MK games, stylistically.

The combat system's depth comes from the fighters' ability switch between three distinct
fighting styles on the fly. The fact that one of theses styles is weapons-based just makes it
all look even more absurd -- i.e., picture a warrior manifesting a staff out of nowhere at the
end of a combo. In any case, the game's most complex combos incorporate two or more of
the fighters' styles, and they require some fancy, and precise button inputs to be executed
properly. In this manner, Mortal Kombat: Deception both exhibits the kind of depth
that modern fighting games require for them to be taken seriously, as well as rewards
serious players with hard-hitting, efficient tools.

The problem, though, is that it lacks the element of improvisation that games like Soul
Calibur and Virtua Fighter benefit so much from. If you screw up a combo,
you're pretty much doomed to sit back, and eat whatever retaliation your opponent has cued
up. While the same can be true in the aforementioned games, they're usually more flexible
as to what can string with what. Deception, rather, relies on "dial-a-combos," whose
envelopes for execution are rather short and precise. The pace is similar to Mortal
Kombat 3 (and, more questionably, Killer Instinct. There are even "combo
breakers" built into the system -- simple-to-execute countermeasures that you can use to
stop a comboing enemy in its tracks, which you can use three times per fight.